Nonsense! How could my adopted son be a villain?

Yu Rong was clearly very concerned about whether she was fat or not, and was so angry that she refused to eat the lychee cake.

Unfortunately, he didn't realize that curling up in his little nest and sulking made him look even fatter.

Xu Lingguang, both amused and exasperated, held the sulking little one and comforted him for a while before finally figuring out the reason. After figuring it out, he was even more speechless. Although Yu Rong had indeed gained a little weight, the older brother's words were far too direct, completely disregarding the little one's self-esteem.

And look how scared Yu Rong is, she doesn't even want to go home.

After Xu Lingguang found out what was going on, he reassured Yu Rong, "Don't worry, I won't starve you."

There are many ways to help cubs lose weight, but eating less is a last resort. Cubs are still growing, and what if eating less affects their development?

Yu Rong clung to his arm pitifully: "Really?"

Xu Lingguang rubbed his ear: "Of course it's true. When have I ever lied to you?"

Yu Rong finally believed it and regained his energy, but then he started fighting with the other cubs for lychee cakes. Xu Lingguang looked at his unusually rounder figure and thought that he still needed to eat three meals a day, but he could make more fat-reducing foods. Next time they went to find medicinal herbs, he could also let Yu Rong go and find them to increase his activity level.

Eat healthily and exercise more, and you'll naturally lose weight.

Having made up his mind, Xu Lingguang took the cubs out to find medicinal herbs in the afternoon.

He wanted to find saltpeter and gallnut.

During this period, he had intermittently finished reading the few "Pharmacopoeia" books left by Wu Yao. After reading them, he discovered that the latter half of one of the "Pharmacopoeia" books was actually a book of alchemy, which recorded many prescriptions for elixirs, as well as the effects of the elixirs, the methods of refining them, the materials, the heat, etc., all of which were listed very clearly.

After studying it for a while, Xu Lingguang developed the illusion that he could do it too.

So he decided to try refining elixirs himself.

The recipe happened to include the Rejuvenation Pill. After studying it, he discovered that the materials for refining the Rejuvenation Pill were neither complicated nor expensive. However, because the refining process was somewhat difficult and there were not many excellent alchemists, the price of the Rejuvenation Pill remained high.

This is merely the most common and least effective life-extending elixir.

As for other life-extending pills with wider applicability and better effects, Xu Ling didn't even feel blinded by the sheer amount of spirit stones emanating from them just by glancing at their prices.

Therefore, with the idea of ​​not letting middlemen make a profit, Xu Lingguang decided to try refining pills himself.

Of course, he couldn't start by refining the Rejuvenation Pill, so he chose the Spirit Nourishing Pill, a relatively simple basic pill. The Spirit Nourishing Pill is considered a niche pill, mainly used to assist spirit pets in their cultivation. Xu Lingguang chose to try the Spirit Nourishing Pill for two reasons: firstly, the method seemed simple, and secondly, he had seen the necessary materials in the Ailao Mountains before, meaning he could gather them himself and refine the pill without wasting money on additional materials.

All you need to do to try alchemy is buy an alchemy furnace.

There are plenty of horse nitrate and gallnut in the forests of Ailao Mountain. Xu Lingguang took his four cubs and picked two full baskets back. Afterwards, he went down the mountain again and bought the cheapest alchemy furnace, and began to try to refine the Spirit Nourishing Pill.

Xu Lingguang found a quiet, shady spot in the backyard, sent the little ones to play elsewhere, and then began following the alchemy manual.

He sat cross-legged, placed the small brass alchemy furnace in front of him, and then threw a low-grade spirit stone into the furnace. He then guided his spiritual power into a small wisp of spiritual fire, which entered the brass furnace and enveloped the spirit stone inside, slowly baking it into a ball of spiritual liquid.

Then add the horse tooth saltpeter and gallnuts one after another. After all the materials have blended with the spiritual liquid, use another stream of spiritual power to remove the impurities from the spiritual liquid.

Reaching this step means you've already succeeded more than halfway.

But just removing the impurities took a lot of Xu Lingguang's energy. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his already weak spiritual energy was starting to feel like it was about to give out.

But seeing that he was only one step away from success, he gritted his teeth and squeezed out a wisp of spiritual energy from his depleted spiritual veins, just like squeezing a sponge.

The final step is to divide the large mass of spiritual liquid into several smaller masses, then bake the liquid with spiritual fire until the moisture is evaporated, thus forming the pill. This step is crucial, much like cooking; too much heat will cause the pill to crumble, while too little heat will cause the medicinal properties and spiritual energy in the liquid to be lost, resulting in either a decrease in quality or the pill becoming a waste.

Xu Lingguang stared intently at the few small clumps of liquid in the alchemy furnace, his entire focus on the subtle changes in the spiritual liquid.

The alchemy manual clearly outlines the steps for refining elixirs, but it also states that the subtle changes in elixir refining require the alchemist to sense and control them. For example, the heat is categorized into high heat, medium heat, and low heat, and even further subdivided into three parts heat and four parts heat. The alchemist must control and adjust the heat according to the actual situation.

Xu Lingguang could only rely on his senses to carefully explore, gradually increasing or decreasing the spiritual fire.

In the end, he felt his eyes were almost numb from staring for so long, and his mind became dull. But when he smelled a faint medicinal fragrance, he instinctively increased the spiritual fire. In the next instant, the translucent spiritual liquid turned as white as snow under the suddenly enlarged spiritual fire, and a stronger fragrance spread out.

It became.

Xu Lingguang was overjoyed and quickly took out the snow-white pill to examine it.

There are four pills in total, emitting a refreshing medicinal fragrance. They are round and plump, hard to the touch, and have very faint spiritual patterns on their surface. These spiritual patterns are the lines left when the pills are burned by spiritual fire. They are very faint and can only be seen by careful observation, but they are an important condition for judging the quality of the pills.

The spiritual patterns on the four Spirit Nourishing Pills were evenly distributed, and the surface of the pills was not damaged, so they should be mid-grade Spirit Nourishing Pills.

If it's a low-grade Spirit Nourishing Pill, the spirit patterns will be more prominent because the spirit fire is not stable enough, resulting in chaotic and irregular patterns that will somewhat damage the pill's surface. However, if it's a high-grade Spirit Nourishing Pill, the spirit patterns on the pill's surface will almost blend into the pill itself, with evenly and regularly distributed patterns densely covering the surface, making it appear as if there are no patterns at first glance.

Xu Lingguang held the pills with great joy. At this moment, he had completely forgotten the difficulties in the pill refining process. He picked one up and looked at it again and again at the moon above his head, and said proudly, "Pill refining doesn't seem so difficult after all."

On his first attempt, he successfully refined four mid-grade Spirit Nourishing Pills. Although Spirit Nourishing Pills are the most basic and simplest pills, this did not diminish his pride.

Could it be that he didn't invest his skill points in cultivation and fighting, but instead invested them in alchemy?

Xu Lingguang carried the four Nourishing Spirit Pills home like precious treasures. He was rummaging through his drawers looking for a porcelain bottle to put them in when the black snake that had been hanging motionless from the roof beam suddenly peeked down and, before Xu Lingguang could react, swallowed the four Nourishing Spirit Pills in his hand.

"..." Xu Lingguang stared blankly at it.

The black snake made a swallowing motion, then shrank back and remained hanging motionless from the roof beam.

Xu Lingguang: !!!

He belatedly realized that the black snake had eaten the elixir he had just refined.

"You can't just take pills like that." Xu Lingguang grabbed its tail and pulled it off, trying to make it vomit. "What if it causes problems?"

The black snake grew impatient with him pinching and squeezing it, and slapped his hand with its tail before trying to run away.

Seeing that it was full of energy and disappeared in no time, Xu Lingguang stood there and comforted himself, saying, "Spirit-Nourishing Pills are for spirit pets. Although the black snake isn't a spirit, it's still a pet, so it should be fine..."

Anyway, it's Black Snake's own choice to eat it, so if something goes wrong, it's not his fault.